The Problem Isn't Meal Kits, It's Cooking, Period.

Consider this: more than half of Americans hate to cook. They would rather order delivery or take-out, they would rather eat in a restaurant, coffee shop, cafeteria, or fast-food parlor. Even breakfast cereal is too much; they'd rather stop at Starbucks or even Taco Bell.

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According to a study published last week in the Harvard Business Review, only one in ten Americans actually enjoy preparing dinner, which puts cooking into a category alongside hobbies like wood working, stamp collecting, or sewing your own clothes. The problem isn't the convenience of a meal kit service, it's dealing with food at all.

Cooking at home is on a long, slow, steady decline, and the retail consequences are frightening: according to the Harvard Review article, the top 25 food and beverage companies have lost $18 billion in market share since 2009.

"The risk to traditional grocers and Big Food is not just market share declines but category obsolescence," says the study's author, a retail consultant named Eddie Yoon. "As more people opt to buy prepared meals, grocers need to reallocate shelf space, and manufacturers will need to exit entire categories."

We see it already: grocers lowering prices to lure more customers; grocers adding restaurants and salad bars to their stores. Nothing seems to be "working," if by working we mean stanching the flow of dollars away from grocers and into other sectors of the food space.

But why should people be asked to visit a grocery store in the first place? The average supermarket stocks 35,000 items these days, a bewildering array of choices that make grocery shopping at worst a chore or, at best, a treasure hunt.

Then there's the problem of "cooking" itself. More cookbooks are published every year than any other category. Why? Because all-too-many Americans don't know how to cook and don't understand the process.